A COMMENT ON THE SESSIONS OF THE KUOMINTANG CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AND
OF THE PEOPLE'S POLITICAL COUNCIL

October 5, 1943

[This editorial was written by Comrade Mao Tse-tung for the Liberation
Daily, Yenan.]

The Kuomintang held the Eleventh Plenary Session of its Central Executive
Committee from September 6 to 13, and the Kuomintang government held the
Second Session of the Third People's Political Council from September 18
to 27. Now that all the documents of both these meetings are at hand, we
can make a general comment.

The international situation is on the threshold of a great change, whose
imminence is sensed on all sides. The European Axis Powers have sensed it,
and Hitler is adopting a desperate last-ditch policy. In the main, it is
the Soviet Union that is bringing this change about. The Soviet Union is
now taking advantage of it--the Red Army has already fought its way to the
Dnieper, sweeping all before it, and another winter offensive will bring
it to the old, if not to the new, Soviet boundaries. Britain and the United
States, too, are taking advantage of the change; Roosevelt and Churchill
are waiting for the first sign of Hitler's downfall to thrust into France.
In short, the German fascist war machine will soon fall apart, the problem
of the anti-fascist war in Europe is on the eve of total solution, and the
Soviet Union is the main force in annihilating fascism. As the world anti-fascist
war has its pivot in Europe, once the problem there is solved, the fate of
the two great world camps, the fascist and the anti-fascist camps, will be
decided. The Japanese imperialists feel themselves cornered, and their policy,
too, can only be to muster all possible strength for a desperate last-ditch
struggle. In China, they will try to "mop up" the Communists and entice the
Kuomintang to capitulate.

The Kuomintang has also sensed the change. Faced with this situation it feels
both joy and fear. Joy, because it imagines that with the war in Europe over,
Britain and the United States will be left free to fight Japan on its behalf,
and that it will be able to return to Nanking without any effort. Fear, because
with the downfall of all three fascist powers the world will enter a great
and unprecedented age of liberation, and the Kuomintang's comprador-feudal
fascist dictatorship will become a small island in a vast ocean of freedom
and democracy; it fears that its own brand of fascism with its "one party,
one doctrine, one leader" will be buried beneath the waves.

Originally the Kuomintang hoped to have the Soviet Union fighting it out
with Hitler single-handed and to instigate the Japanese to attack the Soviet
Union, so that the land of socialism would be destroyed or at least badly
mauled; it also hoped that Britain and the United States would shift all
their forces to the East and first smash Japan and then wipe out the Chinese
Communist Party, before bothering about any second or third front in Europe.
It was for this ulterior purpose that the Kuomintang first clamoured for
a strategy of "Asia before Europe" and then for "equal attention to Europe
and Asia". In August this year, towards the end of the Quebec conference,
when Roosevelt and Churchill summoned T. V. Soong, the foreign minister of
the Kuomintang government, to Quebec and spoke a few words to him, the Kuomintang
started shouting that "Roosevelt and Churchill are turning to the East",
that "the 'Europe before Asia' plan is changed", that "Quebec is a conference
of the three great powers, Britain, the United States and China", etc., and
joyfully indulged in self-glorification. But this was the Kuomintang's last
occasion to rejoice. Since then its mood has changed somewhat; "Asia before
Europe" and "equal attention to Europe and Asia" have been consigned to the
museum of history, and now the Kuomintang is probably cooking up new schemes.
Perhaps the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Kuomintang Central Executive
Committee and the Second Session of the Kuomintang-controlled People's Political
Council mark the beginning of these new schemes.

The Eleventh Plenary Session of the Kuomintang CEC slanderously accused the
Communist Party of "sabotaging the War of Resistance and endangering the
state", and at the same time declared itself in favour of a "political solution"
and of "preparations for constitutional government". Controlled and manipulated
by its Kuomintang majority, the Second Session of the Third PPC passed
resolutions against the Communist Party to roughly the same effect. In addition,
the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Kuomintang CEC "elected" Chiang Kai-shek
president of the Kuomintang government in order to strengthen its dictatorial
machine.

What can the Kuomintang be planning to do now, following the Eleventh Plenary
Session? There are only three possibilities:

(1) capitulation to Japanese imperialism;

(2) dragging along on the old road; and

(3) a change in its political line.

Serving the Japanese imperialists' purpose of "hitting the Communists and
courting the Kuomintang", the defeatists and capitulationists within the
Kuomintang have all along advocated surrender. They have constantly endeavoured
to unleash an anti-Communist civil war which, once started, would naturally
make resistance to Japan impossible, leaving capitulation as the only
alternative. The Kuomintang has concentrated 400,000 to 500,000 troops in
northwestern China and is stealthily diverting still more forces there from
other fronts. It is said that the generals are in good fettle and are
proclaiming, "Taking Yenan is no problem." This is how they have been talking
since Mr. Chiang Kai-shek's speech at the Eleventh Plenary Session in which
he described the Communist problem as "a political one and should be solved
politically" and since the Session's resolutions to roughly the same effect.
Similar resolutions were adapted last year at the Tenth Plenary Session of
the Kuomintang CEC, and the ink was hardly dry before the generals were ordered
to draw up military plans for liquidating the Border Region; in June and
July this year forces were deployed in preparation for a blitz against the
Border Region, and the scheme was temporarily shelved only because public
opinion at home and abroad was against it. Now once again, no sooner have
the resolutions of the Eleventh Plenary Session been put down in black and
white than there are reports of the generals' braggadocio and of troop movements.
"Taking Yenan is no problem"--what does this signify? It signifies a decision
to capitulate to Japanese imperialism. Not all the Kuomintang members who
favour "taking Yenan" are necessarily conscious and determined capitulationists.
Some of them may think, "We shall still resist the Japanese while fighting
the Communists." This is probably what many officers of the Whampoa clique
[1] are thinking.

To these gentlemen we Communists would like to put the following questions.
Have you forgotten the lessons of the ten years of civil war? Once another
civil war starts, will the determined capitulationists allow you to continue
the war against Japan? Will the Japanese and Wang Ching-wei allow you to
continue the war against Japan? Are you really so strong that you can fight
a civil war and a war against the foreign foe at the same time? You claim
to have three million men, but your armies are so demoralized that people
have compared them to two baskets of eggs on the ends of a carrying pole--one
collision and they are finished. This is what has happened in all the campaigns
in the Chungtiao Mountains, the Taihang Mountains, Chekiang and Kiangsi,
western Hupeh and the Tapieh Mountains. The simple reason is that you have
followed the fatal policy of being "active against the Communists" and "passive
against the Japanese". A national enemy has penetrated deep into our country,
and the more actively you fight the Communists and the more passively you
resist the Japanese, the lower will be the morale of your troops. If you
make such a poor show in fighting the foreign aggressor, can you expect your
troops suddenly to become tough in fighting the Communists and the people?
It is out of the question. Once you start civil war, you will have to give
it your undivided attention and inevitably abandon all thought of "simultaneous
resistance"; in the end you will inevitably find yourselves signing a treaty
of unconditional surrender to Japanese imperialism, with capitulation as
the only policy left to you. Those of you in the Kuomintang who do not really
wish to capitulate will inevitably end up as capitulationists if you take
an active part in instigating or prosecuting civil war. This will surely
happen if you lend yourselves to the manoeuvres of the capitulationist clique
and use the resolutions of the Eleventh Plenary Session and the People's
Political Council as an instrument for mobilizing public opinion and preparing
for anti-Communist civil war. Even if you do not want to capitulate in the
first place, you will end up by surrendering in the wake of the capitulationist
clique if you lend yourselves to their manoeuvres and take a wrong step.
That is the first possibility concerning the direction the Kuomintang may
take after the Eleventh Plenary Session, and there is an extremely serious
danger that it may materialize. From the standpoint of the capitulationist
clique, talk about a "political solution" and "preparations for constitutional
government" is the best means of camouflaging its preparations for civil
war, i.e., for surrender; all Communists, all patriotic members of the
Kuomintang, all anti-Japanese parties, and all our follow-countrymen who
are opposed to Japan should be sharply on the alert against this extremely
grave danger and should not be fooled by the camouflage. It must be recognized
that the danger of civil war has never been so great as it is now after the
Kuomintang's Eleventh Plenary Session.

There is another direction in which these resolutions may lead, that of "stalling
for a while and starting the civil war later". This course, which differs
somewhat from that of the capitulationist clique, may be taken by those people
who still want to keep up the appearance of resistance to Japan while absolutely
refusing to abandon anti-communism and dictatorial rule. They may move in
this direction since they see that great changes in the international situation
are inevitable and Japanese imperialism is doomed; that civil war would mean
capitulation and the people throughout the country are for resistance and
against civil war; that the Kuomintang is in a state of serious crisis, having
alienated itself from the masses, lost popular support and become more isolated
than ever; and that the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union are all
opposed to the launching of civil war by the Chinese government. All this
may force them to postpone their civil-war schemes and play for time with
empty talk about a "political solution" and "preparations for constitutional
government". These people are past masters in the tactics of deception and
stalling. Even in their dreams they do not forget their desire to "take Yenan"
and "liquidate the Communist Party". On this point they are entirely at one
with the capitulationist clique. Nevertheless they do wish to keep up the
pretence of resistance to Japan, they do not wish the Kuomintang to forfeit
its international standing, and they sometimes fear the censure of domestic
and foreign public opinion; therefore they may stall behind the smokescreen
of a "political solution" and "preparations for constitutional government"
while waiting for more favourable conditions. They have no sincere desire
for a "political solution" or "constitutional government", at least certainly
not at the moment. Last year, about the time of the Tenth Plenary Session
of the Kuomintang CEC, Comrade Lin Piao was sent to Chungking by the Central
Committee of the Communist Party to confer with Mr. Chiang Kai-shek. He waited
in Chungking for ten long months, but Mr. Chiang Kai-shek and the Central
Executive Committee of the Kuomintang had no desire to discuss a single concrete
problem with him. In March this year, Mr. Chiang Kai-shek published his book
China's Destiny in which he emphasizes his opposition to communism
and liberal ideas, shifts the blame for the ten years of civil war on to
the Communist Party, slanders the Communist Party, the Eighth Route Army
and the New Fourth Army as "warlords of a new type" and "separatists of a
new type", and implies that he will finish off the Communists within two
years. On June 28 this year, Mr. Chiang Kai-shek permitted Chou En-lai, Lin
Piao and other comrades to return to Yenan, but at that very moment he ordered
his defence forces on the Yellow River to march on the Border Region, and
he also ordered the local authorities throughout the country to seize the
opportunity of the dissolution of the Third International to demand, in the
name of so-called people's organizations, that the Communist Party of China
be dissolved. In these circumstances, we Communists were obliged to call
on the Kuomintang and the whole nation to avert civil war, and we were obliged
to expose all the Kuomintang's sinister schemes and conspiracies which were
sabotaging the War of Resistance and endangering the state. Our patience
has been taxed to the limit, as the historical facts show. Ever since the
fall of Wuhan, there has been no end to the anti-Communist battles, large
or small, in northern and central China. It is now two years since the Pacific
war broke out, and throughout this time the Kuomintang has been attacking
the Communists in central and northern China; apart from the troops originally
stationed there, it has dispatched the group armies under Wang Chung-lien
and Li Hsien-chou to attack the Communists in Kiangsu and Shantung. Pang
Ping-hsun's group army in the area of the Taihang Mountains is under orders
to concentrate exclusively on the Communists; so are the Kuomintang troops
in Anhwei and Hupeh. For a long time, we did not make even these facts public.
The Kuomintang newspapers and periodicals have never for a moment stopped
vilifying the Communist Party, but for a long time we did not say a word
in reply. Without any justification, the Kuomintang disbanded the New Fourth
Army which was heroically fighting Japan, wiped out over nine thousand men
of its contingents in southern Anhwei, arrested Yeh Ting, killed Hsiang Ying
[2] and imprisoned hundreds of its cadres; although
this was a monstrous betrayal of the people and the nation, we maintained
our forbearance for the country's sake, simply lodging a protest and demanding
redress. When Mr. Chiang Kai-shek met Comrade Chou En-lai, the representative
of the Communist Party, at Lushan in June and July 1937, he promised that
the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region would be designated by decree as an
administrative division under the direct jurisdiction of the Executive Yuan
of the National Government and that its officials would receive formal
appointments. Now Mr. Chiang Kai-shek has not only eaten his own words, he
has gone so far as to encircle the Border Region with 400,000 to 500,000
men to enforce a military and economic blockade; he will not be happy with
anything less than the destruction of the people of the Border Region as
well as the rear headquarters of the Eighth Route Army. It is particularly
notorious that promised supplies have been cut off from the Eighth Route
Army and that the Communist Party is abused as the "traitor party", the New
Fourth Army as the "rebel army", the Eighth Route Army as the "traitor army",
etc. In short, all the Kuomintang people who are behaving in this way see
the Communist Party as the enemy. To the Kuomintang, the Communist Party
is ten times, nay, a hundred times more hateful than the Japanese. The Kuomintang
concentrates its hatred on the Communist Party and has little, if any, to
spare for the Japanese. This resembles the behaviour of the Japanese fascists,
who treat the Kuomintang and the Communist Party differently. Concentrating
their hatred on the Chinese Communist Party, the Japanese fascists have become
more and more gentle with the Kuomintang; of their two slogans, "Oppose the
Communists" and "Annihilate the Kuomintang", only the first now remains.
The newspapers and periodicals controlled by the Japanese and Wang Ching-wei
no longer print such slogans as "Down with the Kuomintang" and "Overthrow
Chiang Kai-shek". Japan is bearing down on the Communist Party with 58 per
cent of her forces in China and is just using 42 per cent to keep watch on
the Kuomintang; she has recently relaxed this watch and withdrawn many of
her troops from Chekiang and Hupeh in order to make it easier to inveigle
the Kuomintang into capitulation. The Japanese imperialists have never dared
utter a single word to persuade the Communist Party to capitulate, but they
have no hesitation in directing an endless stream of words to persuade the
Kuomintang to do so. The Kuomintang is fierce only towards the Communist
Party and the people, but it drops all its ferocity in the face of the Japanese.
Not only has it changed from being a participant to being a mere spectator
in the war as far as fighting is concerned, but even in words it dares not
offer as much as a single sharp rebuff to the insults and blandishments of
Japanese imperialism. The Japanese say, "There is nothing wrong with the
line of argument in Chiang Kai-shek's China's Destiny." Has Mr.
Chiang or any member of his party ever rebutted this? No, they have not and
dare not. How can the Japanese help despising the Kuomintang when they see
that Mr. Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang use "military and governmental
orders" and "discipline" only against the Communists, and neither desire
nor dare to use them against the twenty members of the Kuomintang Central
Executive Committee and the fifty-eight Kuomintang generals who have deserted
to the enemy? The people throughout the country and the friendly nations
throughout the world have seen Mr. Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang disbanding
the New Fourth Army and attacking the Eighth Route Army, encircling the Border
Region, maligning them with such labels as "traitor party", "traitor army",
"warlords of a new type", "a new type of separatist regime", "sabotaging
the War of Resistance" and "endangering the state", and constantly invoking
"military and governmental orders" and "discipline"; they have never seen
Mr. Chiang and the Kuomintang enforcing any military orders, government decrees
or disciplinary measures against the twenty members of the Kuomintang Central
Executive Committee and the fifty-eight Kuomintang generals who went over
to the enemy. Similarly, the resolutions recently passed at the Eleventh
Plenary Session of the Kuomintang CEC and at the meeting of the People's
Political Council are all directed against the Communist Party, while not
a single one is directed against the many members of the Kuomintang CEC itself
and the many army generals who have turned traitor and defected. What are
the people throughout the country and the friendly nations throughout the
world to think of the Kuomintang? As was to be expected, there was once again
talk about a "political solution" and "preparations for constitutional
government" at the Eleventh Plenary Session; well and good, we welcome such
talk. But judging by the political line the Kuomintang has consistently followed
all those years, we consider this talk to be just so many empty words designed
to dupe the people, the real purpose being to gain time for preparing civil
war so as to perpetuate its dictatorial rule over the people.

Is there a third direction in which the current situation may develop? Yes,
there is. It is what a number of Kuomintang members, all the people and we
Communists are hoping for. What is this third course? A just and reasonable
political settlement of the relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist
Party, a genuinely democratic and free constitutional government, the abolition
of the fascist dictatorship with its "one party, one doctrine, one leader"
and the convening during the War of Resistance of a national assembly genuinely
elected by the people. We Communists have advocated this course from the
very beginning. A number of Kuomintang members will also agree to it. For
a long time we hoped that even Mr. Chiang Kai-shek and his own faction in
the Kuomintang might pursue this course. But judging from what has happened
in the last few years and what is happening now, there is nothing to show
that Mr. Chiang and the majority of the Kuomintang personages in power are
willing to do so.

A number of conditions, international and domestic, are needed before this
course can be realized. At the present time (with fascism in Europe on the
eve of complete collapse) the international conditions are favourable to
China's War of Resistance, but it is at this very moment that the capitulators
are especially eager to instigate civil war so that they can capitulate,
and that the Japanese and Wang Ching-wei, too, are particularly keen on civil
war, so as to inveigle them into capitulation. Wang Ching-wei said (according
to the Domei News Agency, October 1): "Devoted brothers always remain brothers,
and Chungking will certainly follow our road, the sooner the better, we hope."
What affection, confidence and eagerness! Thus in the present situation the
best that can be expected from the Kuomintang is stalling, while the danger
of a sudden deterioration is very grave indeed. The conditions necessary
for the third course are not all present yet, and patriots of all parties
and the people throughout China must make many-sided efforts to bring them
into being.

Mr. Chiang Kai-shek announced at the Eleventh Plenary Session:

It should be stated clearly that the central authorities make no demands
upon the Communist Party other than that it should give up its armed separatist
regime and cease its surprise attacks on the National Army, which sabotage
the War of Resistance; it is to be hoped that the Communist Party will carry
out its declaration made in the 26th year of the Republic [1937] calling
for united efforts to save the nation and will put into effect the four pledges
given in that declaration.

Mr. Chiang's talk of "surprise attacks on the National Army, which sabotage
the War of Resistance" ought to be applied to the Kuomintang itself, and
it is a pity that he is so prejudiced and malicious as to slander the Communist
Party in this way. Since the fall of Wuhan the Kuomintang has launched three
anti-Communist onslaughts, in each of which, as the facts show, the Kuomintang
troops sprang surprise attacks on the Communist forces. In the first campaign,
from the winter of 1939 to the spring of 1940, the Kuomintang troops in their
surprise attacks captured five county towns garrisoned by the Eighth Route
Army in the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region, Chunhua, Hsunyi, Chengning,
Ninghsien and Chenyuan, even employing aircraft in these operations. In northern
China, Chu Huai-ping's troops were dispatched to the Taihang Mountain region
for a surprise attack on the Eighth Route Army forces, which only fought
back in self-defence. The second campaign was launched in January 1941. Earlier,
on October 19, 1940, Ho Ying-chin and Pai Chung-hsi had telegraphed a categorical
order to Chu Teh, Peng Teh-huai, Yeh Ting and Hsiang Ying, commanding all
units of the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies south of the Yellow River
to move north of the river within a month. We promised that our troops in
southern Anhwei would move north; as for the others, while it was impossible
for them to be shifted in the circumstances, we promised that they would
move to the assigned positions after victory in the anti-Japanese war. Yet,
before our 9,000 men in southern Anhwei began moving north on January 5 in
compliance with the order, Mr. Chiang Kai-shek had already issued another
order to "catch them all in a dragnet". Between January 6 and 14, the Kuomintang
troops in southern Anhwei actually did catch these New Fourth Army units
in a dragnet. Moreover, on January 17, Mr. Chiang Kai-shek ordered the whole
New Fourth Army to be disbanded and Yeh Ting to be court-martialled. The
Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies have since been attacked wherever there
are Kuomintang troops in the anti-Japanese base areas in central and northern
China, and they have only fought back in self-defence. The third campaign
began in March of this year and is still going on. The Kuomintang forces
have continued their assaults on the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies in
central and northern China. In addition, Mr. Chiang Kai-shek has published
his China's Destiny, which is a diatribe against communism and against
the people. He has diverted many of his Yellow River defence forces for a
lightning attack on the Border Region. He has instigated so-called people's
organizations all over the country to demand the dissolution of the Communist
Party. He has mobilized the Kuomintang majority in the People's Political
Council to endorse Ho Ying-chin's military report vilifying the Eighth Route
Army and to adopt anti-Communist resolutions. He has thus turned the Council,
which should be a symbol of anti-Japanese unity, into a private agency of
the Kuomintang for manufacturing anti-Communist public opinion in preparation
for civil war, with the result that Comrade Tang Pi-wu, the Communist member
of the Council, had to walk out in protest. These three anti-Communist onslaughts
were deliberately planned and launched by the Kuomintang. We may well ask,
what are they if not actions which "sabotage the War of Resistance"?

On September 22 of the 26th year of the Republic (1937), the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of China issued a declaration calling for united efforts
to save the nation. In it we said:

To strip the enemy of any pretext for his intrigues and to remove any
misunderstanding among all well-intentioned doubters, the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of China finds it necessary to proclaim its heartfelt
devotion to the cause of national liberation. Therefore, it once again solemnly
declares to the whole nation: (1) that Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three People's
Principles being what China needs today, our Party is ready to fight for
their complete realization; (2) that we shall discontinue the policies of
insurrection to overthrow the Kuomintang regime and of forcible confiscation
of the land of the landlords; (3) that we shall reorganize the present Red
government as the democratic government of a special region in the hope that
state power will be unified throughout the country; and (4) that the Red
Army will change its name and designation, will be reorganized as part of
the National Revolutionary Army and placed under the Military Council of
the National Government, and will be ready for orders to march to the
anti-Japanese front and do its duty.

We have completely fulfilled these four pledges; neither Mr. Chiang Kai-shek
nor anyone else in the Kuomintang can charge us with having defaulted on
a single one of them. In the first place, the policies practised by the Communist
Party in the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region and in the anti-Japanese
base areas behind the enemy lines are in keeping with Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three
People's Principles, and not a single one runs counter to them. In the second
place, as long as the Kuomintang does not capitulate to the national enemy,
disrupt Kuomintang-Communist co-operation or launch civil war against the
Communists, we will always keep our promise not to overthrow the Kuomintang
or to confiscate the land of the landlords by force. We have kept this pledge
in the past, are doing so now and will continue to do so in the future. That
means that only when the Kuomintang capitulates to the enemy, disrupts
co-operation and launches civil war will we be forced to cancel our pledge,
for these are the only circumstances which would make it impossible for us
to keep it. In the third place, the original Red government was reorganized
in the very first year of the War of Resistance, and the "three thirds- system"
of democratic government has long been in operation, but to this day the
Kuomintang has not fulfilled its promise to recognize the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia
Border Region and, what is more, it accuses us of "feudal separatism". Mr.
Chiang Kai-shek and other members of the Kuomintang! You should know that
what you call "separatism"-- the state of affairs in which the
Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region and other anti-Japanese base areas are
not recognized by the Kuomintang government--is not of our seeking but has
been entirely forced on us by yourselves. What reason do you have for accusing
us of "separatism" while you go back on your own words, refuse the recognition
you pledged to the Border Region and refuse to acknowledge its democratic
government? Day in day out we ask for recognition and you refuse--who then
is responsible? What reason does Mr. Chiang have for railing against "separatism"
in his China's Destiny, without showing the slightest sense of his
own responsibility in the matter, though he himself is Director-General of
the Kuomintang and head of its government? Availing ourselves of the occasion
of the Eleventh Plenary Session at which Mr. Chiang Kai-shek has again demanded
that we fulfil our promise, we demand that he fulfil his promise to give
legal recognition to the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region, where the Principle
of Democracy has long been in practice, and to the anti-Japanese democratic
base areas behind the enemy's lines as well. If you persist in your policy
of non-recognition, it will mean that you want us to continue with "separatism",
and that, as in the past, the blame will fall entirely on you and not on
us. In the fourth place, it is a long time since the Red Army changed its
"name and designation", became "reorganized as part of the National Revolutionary
Army" and was "placed under the Military Council of the National Government";
this pledge was fulfilled long ago. The only force directly under the Central
Committee of the Communist Party and not under the Military Council of the
National Government is the New Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary
Army; the reason is that it was proscribed as a "rebel army" and "disbanded"
on January 17, 1941 by the Military Council in a counter-revolutionary order
sabotaging the War of Resistance and endangering the state, and was, moreover,
subjected to daily attacks by the Kuomintang troops. Yet this army has
consistently fought the Japanese in central China and fulfilled the first
three of the four pledges; furthermore, it is willing to come "under the
Military Council of the National Government" once again, and asks Mr. Chiang
Kai-shek to repeal the order for its disbandment and restore its designation
so as to enable it to fulfil the fourth pledge.

The document concerning the Communist Party adopted at the Eleventh Plenary
Session also stated:

As for the other problems, they can all be raised at the national assembly
for discussion and solution, since the present session has resolved that
a national assembly should be convened and a constitution drawn up and
promulgated within one year after the conclusion of the war.

The "other problems" here referred to are the abolition of the Kuomintang
dictatorship, the abolition of the fascist secret service, the establishment
of democratic role throughout the country, the abolition of economic controls,
exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous levies harmful to the people, the application
on a nation-wide scale of the agrarian policy of reducing rent and interest
and of the economic policy of helping small and medium scale industries and
improving the workers' livelihood. In its declaration of September 22, 1937
calling for united efforts to save the nation our Party stated:

Democracy should be put into effect and a national assembly convened to frame
and adopt a constitution and draw up a policy of national salvation. To enable
the Chinese people to lead a happy and prosperous life, effective measures
must first be taken to provide famine relief, ensure a stable livelihood,
develop defence industries, deliver the people from suffering and improve
their living conditions.

Since this declaration was accepted in its entirety by Mr. Chiang Kai-shek
in a statement on the very next day (September 23), he should not merely
ask the Communist Party to keep the four pledges it set forth, he should
also ask himself, the Kuomintang and the Kuomintang government to carry out
the provisions we have quoted.

Mr. Chiang Kai-shek is not only the Director-General of the Kuomintang, he
has also become president of the Kuomintang government (nominally the National
Government); he should therefore conscientiously carry out these provisions
about democracy and the people's livelihood, honour the innumerable promises
he himself has made to us Communists and to the people throughout the country,
and should stop repudiating his promises and acting high-handedly, saying
one thing and doing another. Together with the whole people, we Communists
want deeds and not more empty, deceitful words. If deeds are forthcoming,
we shall rejoice; empty words without deeds will not deceive the people for
long. What we ask of Mr. Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang is the following:
Carry the War of Resistance through to the end, avert the danger of capitulation;
continue co-operation, avert the crisis of civil war; recognize the democratic
government in the Border Region and in the anti-Japanese base areas behind
the enemy lines, reinstate the New Fourth Army, stop the anti-Communist campaign,
withdraw the 400,000 to 500,000 troops now encircling the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia
Border Region; stop using the People's Political Council as a private agency
of the Kuomintang for stirring up anti-Communist opinion, lift the ban on
freedom of speech, assembly and association, abolish the one-party dictatorship
of the Kuomintang; reduce rent and interest, improve the living and working
conditions of the workers, help the small and medium scale industries; abolish
the secret service, put an end to fascist education and introduce democratic
education. You yourselves have promised to do most of these things. If you
fulfil these demands and promises, we assure you that we shall continue to
fulfil our promises. We are ready to resume the talks between the two parties
at any time, if Mr. Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang are ready.

In short, of the three possible directions which the Kuomintang may take,
the first, capitulation and civil war, is the road of destruction for Mr.
Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang. The second, demagogic deception for the
purpose of gaining time while clinging to fascist dictatorship and actively
conducting secret preparations for civil war, likewise offers no salvation
for Mr. Chiang and the Kuomintang. Only the third direction, the complete
abandonment of the erroneous course of fascist dictatorship and civil war
and the pursuit of the correct course of democracy and co-operation, can
bring Mr. Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang on to the road of salvation.
However, Mr. Chiang and the Kuomintang have so far done nothing to convince
the people that they intend to move in the third direction; hence, the people
throughout the country must remain on guard against the extremely grave danger
of capitulation and civil war.

Let all patriotic members of the Kuomintang unite and forbid the Kuomintang
authorities to go in the first direction, prevent them from continuing in
the second and demand that they take the third!

Let all patriotic anti-Japanese parties and people unite and forbid the
Kuomintang authorities to go in the first direction, prevent them from continuing
in the second and demand that they take the third!

An unparalleled change is imminent in the world. We hope that Mr. Chiang
Kai-shek and the members of the Kuomintang will conduct themselves well at
this great turning point of our era. We hope that all patriotic parties and
patriotic people will conduct themselves well at this great turning point
of our era.

NOTES

1. The Whampoa clique refers to those Kuomintang generals
and officers who had once been instructors or cadets at the Whampoa Military
Academy. They were Chiang Kai-shek's closest followers in the Kuomintang
army.

2. Yeh Ting and Hsiang Ying were respectively Commander
and Deputy Commander of the New Fourth Army.